Jerusalem, Mar 20, 2020 / 11:30 am (CNA).- As Easter is approaching, the Holy Land is enduring tough times: the sacred sites are shut down because of the coronavirus pandemic, and pilgrimages have come to an end.
These events “meaningfully impac… […]
For the past several years, my friend Representative Dan Lipinski (D-IL) and I have pondered the state of the Republic and Dan’s parlous political situation over omelets at Silver Diner or serious carbs at Pancake […]
Vatican City, Mar 20, 2020 / 11:05 am (CNA).- Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, has said that the coronavirus pandemic may justify the use of general absolution, in extraordinary circumstances, for Catholics unable to go to i… […]
Buffalo, N.Y., Mar 20, 2020 / 10:30 am (CNA).- A Catholic hospital in western New York will become the state’s first hospital entirely dedicated to treating COVID-19 patients, it announced on Thursday.
Catholic Health, a hospital network serving… […]
Vatican City, Mar 20, 2020 / 06:41 am (CNA).- The Vatican’s Apostolic Penitentiary has granted a plenary indulgence for people with COVID-19 and for those who care for them, including medical staff and family members, and for those who pray for t… […]
Vatican City, Mar 20, 2020 / 05:01 am (CNA).- Pope Francis spoke Friday about the importance of returning to God, the loving Father, in the sacrament of reconciliation.
“But think of this: to return to God is to return to the embrace, the embrac… […]
Washington D.C., Mar 20, 2020 / 03:01 am (CNA).- The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is, by most accounts, leading the United States toward a financial crisis.
According to Bloomberg, the global pandemic has caused the biggest decline in consumer confidence in the US economy since October 2008. The S&P 500 economic index sits at its lowest level since 2017, unemployment is rising, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average is tumbling.
How might the market downturn affect how much US Catholics give to their parish and other Catholic causes?
While the economic outlook is changing day-by-day, two experts in fundraising for Catholic causes pointed to historical data that suggests that pastors and bishops ought not be reticent to continue fundraising efforts.
Steve Manno, managing director for CCS Fundraising, a firm that has fundraised for numerous U.S. Catholic dioceses, told CNA that while fundraising is difficult, pastors should not give up amid a market downturn.
Manno said that giving to Catholic causes could face some real obstacles in years to come.
Data from the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy suggests philanthropy tends to track with the stock market, with some of the more precipitous drops coming in the last economic downturn of 2008-2009, he told CNA.
The Lilly School data also suggests that while in terms of dollars, overall giving by Americans to charity has risen over the decades, the amount given per household actually is decreasing. Major gifts from high-net worth donors skews the data, Manno said.
In addition, the data show that in 2000, 66% of American households gave to charitable causes overall. By 2016, it was 53%.
Another study by Lilly Family School found that overall, 46% of American households gave to religious congregations in 2000, compared with 32% in 2016. The year 2019, Manno said, was unprecedented for faith-based giving in general.
“It dropped below 30% of all US philanthropy for the first time,” he said.
But Manno also pointed to data from the Center for Disaster Philanthropy that looks at the effects of natural disasters on charitable giving, which he said could provide relevant insights given the crisis at hand.
The data suggests that when an event such as a major natural disaster takes place, most households who donate to disaster relief will not donate less to other causes— in fact, a small percentage (12%) may increase their giving to other causes in addition to donating to disaster relief.
That data could suggest that the coronavirus pandemic itself might not lead to additional decreases in giving.
And there are bright spots on the fundraising landscape. Among them is online giving.
Overall, online giving to Catholic causes is up 2.6% from previous years, Brad Patterson, corporate vice president of CCS, told CNA.
He said development offices are better in general at driving toward online giving than they have been in the past.
In the face of the suspension of public Mass— which all Latin rite dioceses in the United States have now done amid the coronavirus pandemic— many parishes do not yet have an online giving portal set up are likely to feel the pinch of several weeks of no in-person donations. The current crisis will likely spur pastors to make online giving a priority, Patterson said.
Manno said in his experience, a time of financial uncertainty is the time for pastors and bishops to communicate with their flocks as much as possible. That communication is key, he said.
He said that if necessary, asking via videoconferencing for donations is a legitimate option.
“It may feel like now is a moment to pause, or delay activity, but it’s really important to take note that in previous economic downturns, those who continued to push forward in their [fundraising] efforts ultimately succeeded. And those who took a step back lost ground,” Manno told CNA.
He noted that some Catholics are giving less to the Church for reasons unrelated to the stock market, but such drops are highly regionalized. The Archdiocese of Washington, for example, took in millions of dollars less in its annual appeal this year, likely because of fallout from the sexual abuse crisis.
Still: “Catholics remain generous,” Manno said.
“When asked, Catholics give. When invited, they give. When shown what the specific need is, here’s what this money can do, then they tend to respond very favorably.”
Madrid, Spain, Mar 20, 2020 / 12:00 am (CNA).- Spain is among the countries hardest hit by the global coronavirus pandemic; as of Thursday afternoon, more than 18,000 Spaniards have contracted the disease, and more than 800 have died.
Fr. Gaetan Kabasha, a native of Rwanda and a chaplain at Madrid’s San Carlos Hospital Clinic, describes his recent days there as very intense.
“This last week was frenetic. Everything has radically changed. The medical staff knows what to do and they have their protocols. The relatives, as normal, are worried,” the priest told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner.
Kabasha and four other chaplains serve the hospital together.
“Between us chaplains we’ve split up the work. Just the younger ones in good health can attend to the patients with coronavirus,” he explained.
“We chaplains have decided to stay at the hospital and the Church is supporting us in this. It’s a very important value to relieve those who are in the hospital, the sick, family members, and medical personnel because they’re under constant stress. It helps them to see that you’re still there, and for the sick who have always been part of the Church, it is comforting to them to have a priest close by during their illness, and if it’s the case, at the end of their lives.”
“I came upon some relatives of a patient, who were crying. They stopped me and told me they were surprised; that they didn’t know there was a priest in the hospital and asked me to go give the anointing of the sick to their family member,” Kabasha related.
To approach those who are infected, the chaplains are garbed in protective clothing.
“We go in with a gown, mask, double gloves, eye protection and booties. Just like the doctors.”
Kabasha said that the presence of the priest in the hospital is always important but at a critical time like this, even more so.
“People are on edge, the relatives, the sick, the hospital staff…but when they see a chaplain walking through the hospital, their tenseness subsides a bit. They see that they’re not alone, that despite the situation we haven’t left.”
A version of this story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
How exactly will the British “keep calm and carry on” during the crisis caused by the coronavirus? This is the question addressed by British journalist and historian Simon Heffer in an article published in the […]
St. Louis, Mo., Mar 19, 2020 / 08:01 pm (CNA).- Missouri authorities could soon rule on whether the state’s only remaining abortion clinic will remain open despite failures to meet basic patient care standards, and abortion advocates are already publicizing high abortion numbers at the new multi-million-dollar Planned Parenthood clinic built in secret just across the Illinois state line.
In June 2019, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services refused to renew the license of the clinic, Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region, to perform abortions.
A Missouri judge and the Missouri Administration Hearing Commission both granted a temporary stay of the health department’s decision, allowing the clinic to remain open while the case was reviewed.
March 16 marked the deadline for written briefs to be filed with the Missouri Administrative Hearing Commission. The state health department had requested an extension to the original Feb. 28 deadline.
A decision is now “imminent,” advocates in the case told the U.K. newspaper The Guardian.
Before Missouri’s health department refused to renew the license, it submitted to court a “Statement of Deficiencies.” It cited an “unprecedented lack of cooperation” on the part of the St. Louis clinic, as well as a “failure to meet basic standards of patient care.” The statement also identified four instances of failed abortion procedures at the clinic.
Planned Parenthood’s attorneys argued that the state “cherry-picked” a “handful of difficult cases” out of an estimated 3,000 abortions performed at the facility. Its defenders have said that state inspectors did not find an unsafe environment.
Planned Parenthood has provided an analysis to National Public Radio reporting that only three abortions were performed at its St. Louis clinic in February 2020, compared to 174 abortions the previous year. However, 323 abortions were performed at the new Planned Parenthood clinic in nearby Fairview Heights, Ill.
Yamelsie Rodriguez, CEO of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, said that women are seeking abortions in Illinois due to more permissive abortion laws. Missouri also has a 72-hour waiting period for abortion.
“When they are weighing their options, the majority of patients are clearly seeing that abortion access is so unmanageable that they’re choosing to cross state lines,” Rodriguez told NPR.
The new clinic, which opened in October 2019, has space of 18,000 square feet and cost about $7 million to build.
Mary Kate Knorr, Illinois Right to Life Executive Director, in October said the facility is a “money-making venture.”
“Make no mistake – this new mega-facility is not a response to an increased demand, nor is it a gesture of care for women. This facility was created to fill the gaping hole they’re seeing in their bottom line,” Knorr said.
“The construction of this new facility was a strategic business move – certainly not a defense of women.”
Planned Parenthood constructed its new abortion clinic in secret just 13 miles from the St. Louis clinic. It used a shell company to hide that the facility would become one of the nation’s largest abortion clinics.
Colleen McNicholas, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, told CBS News in October that abortion facilities in other areas had faced public outcry and protest during their construction, hence their decision to build the clinic in secret.
Missouri authorities, however, could have final say over the St. Louis Planned Parenthood clinic.
According to the Missouri health department’s “Statement of Deficiencies,” Planned Parenthood went back on its agreement to perform pelvic examinations as a “preoperative health requirement.” Several doctors at the clinic refused requests to provide interviews with the health department, and the clinic would not have been prepared for a case of a woman who suffered “severe hemorrhaging” at a hospital before being referred to Planned Parenthood.
For its part, Planned Parenthood has accused the state of weaponizing the regulatory process and claimed the state has admitted the pelvic exams are “medically unnecessary.”
Some states have seen strong trends in favor of restricting abortion and providing legal protections to the unborn, expecting possible changes in U.S. Supreme Court precedent.
Missouri enacted a comprehensive abortion ban in 2019, which Republican Gov. Mike Parson signed into law. The legislation was supported by Archbishop Robert Carlson of St. Louis.
Missouri’s law set up a multi-tier ban on abortions after eight weeks, 14 weeks, 18 weeks and 20 weeks, as well as bans on abortions conducted solely because of the baby’s race, sex, or Down syndrome diagnosis.
The law was crafted to be able to survive in the courts, but a federal judge in August 2019 struck down all of the bans related to the stages of pregnancy. At present the court left intact the disability, race, and sex-selective abortion bans.
In contrast to Missouri, Illinois law has moved further in a pro-abortion rights direction. In June Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois signed legislation to expand vastly access to abortion in that state.
The Reproductive Rights Act ended a ban on dilation and evacuation abortion, removed regulations for abortion clinics, and ended required waiting periods to obtain an abortion. It also lifted criminal penalties for performing abortions, required all private health insurance plans to cover elective abortions, and eliminated abortion reporting requirements, as well as regulations requiring the investigation of maternal deaths due to abortion.
The legislation was strongly opposed by Illinois’ Catholic bishops.
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